Racism Still Exists in Today’s Society

Christian Strickland

Mr. Wells

ENG 112

3 March 2017

 Racism Still Exists in Today’s Society

When people hear the word racism, what color do they mainly think of; “black,” “white,” “dark-skinned”? Most people hearing the word “racism” think only of African Americans; Though, there are tremendous incidents in today’s world which leads to African Americans being the targeted race. Racism does not just manifest to blacks. It is existent upon blacks, arabs, muslims, whites, and many more. A racist is someone who thinks that one race is more superior than others and thus other races should not be treated as equals. This is a belief held by individuals.  Racism is the systematic oppression of one race by another. This refers to activities participated by members of one race against another regardless of their beliefs. Racism is still present in the world today.

Age has no effect on the likelihood that whites hold strong, biased feelings toward blacks. According to PBS Newshour, 17-34 year olds were the second highest next to 65 and older agreeing that “blacks are unintelligent and lazy”. There is also another poll showing 17-34 year olds agreeing that they have “felt little or no admiration for blacks,” followed by 35-49 year olds being the next highest group. It is clear that some young whites are not very different from their parents. This is an issue related to a structural approach to psychological conditioning. Children are like sponges and they absorb everything in their path. Racism is learned and can be taught. A child’s parents have a gargantuan influence on how a child is socially dealing with other people. Believe it or not, children listen to how their parents talk about things and how their attitude is toward it or them. Children then often repeat what is said. This is how it all starts. They will think it is okay because “mom and dad” said it. Parents should take full responsibility when they make mistakes and correct their children. If the children are not corrected, they could offend someone, thinking it was okay because “mommy and daddy say it all the time so it has to be okay”. Another way racism is learned is through peer pressure and social acceptance. Peer pressure does not just happen in you pre-teen or teenage years, but also in your adult years as well. There is a video on the NBC Latino Blog and it has an acted out video. The video shows a boy singing at his talent show with teen judges. This routine was done flawlessly. At the end of the performance, the judges were saying every racist and disparaging comment in the book. The teen judges were telling the unsuspecting teenagers that the boy did not “look” at all like an American and that he could be an “illegal immigrant”. The unsuspecting teen judges looked uncomfortable while the others were making these racist comments, but laughed along with the comments. All of the teens were persuaded to vote him out because he did not look “American enough” for an American singing competition.  

The media has a lot to do with racism. Negative stereotypes are created this way. Some racial groups tend to commit more crime than others, but ALL RACIAL GROUPS COMMIT CRIMES. Seeing just one targeted race on television makes it seem like that is all that race is good for. The media uses stereotypes as a short method for defining characters in ways that are easy for the audience to define. All of these stereotypes have reduced, one-sided superficial views on people. This then decreases the real variety, depth, and complexity of people. Media today has been a little more sensitive to gender, culture, and race, but the common misconceptions about groups of people continues. This affects how people view each other and self value.